Be clear with yourself about your minimum requirements or what and how much of your ideal you can do without and still be satisfied. Make sure you are clear and realistic about this and never settle on something that is less than your minimum requirements. These are the standards that you should use when considering someone as a potential mate. See how he/she fits into what you want. If your best judgment leads you to believe that living with that person on a daily basis will allow you to have the kind of life you want, then it is probably worth getting to know the person better. If there is something about the person that would likely lead you to a life that is below your bottom line, move on and don't put any more time in the relationship. [c].
Correctly assessing someone is important for fine-tuning our ability to be attracted to someone who is either right for us or at least closer to the target. [pg11a] Don't be misled by what you see in the beginning. When a relationship is new, people tend to be on their best behavior. A person may be quite different after the relationship is established and has become ordinary and routine.[c] Don't make a long-term commitment during the first phase of the relationship. It is all right to commit yourself to spending more time with the person, or to agree to be exclusive with the person while you are developing the relationship and getting to know each other better. Don't, however, commit yourself to the person until after the first stage of the relationship has passed and you are each seeing each other more clearly.[c] It is not merely enough to merely be authentic in sharing yourself; to succeed in dating you need to consider how you will be interpreted as well.[pg4a] No matter how sincere you are, if your partner is misinterpreting your innocent, automatic reactions and responses, your attempts to create a relationship may be unsuccessful.
